Antonio Valverde y Cosío

Antonio Valverde y Cosío (1670–February 1737) was the architect behind the disastrous Villasur expedition wherein the famous Spanish colonial scout José Naranjo perished.

He was a prominent entrepreneur and Spanish soldier who served as acting governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in 1716 and as interim governor of this territory from 1718 to 1721. His politics were based, in large part, on stopping the French invasion of New Mexico.

Biography

Early life Antonio Valverde y Cosío was born around 1670 in Villapresente, Cantabria, Spain. He was attracted to New Spain by various business interests that his family had in the region. He began working in Sombrerete (in modern Mexico) because minerals had been discovered there in 1646. Over time, he and his associates created an important business in the area. The success of their partnership grew over the next 24 years. In 1693, Diego de Vargas, governor of New Mexico, recruited settlers and soldiers from Sombrerete, and Valverde decided to join them. Eventually, he became Vargas' secretary.

From June 1694 to July 1697, Valverde served as a soldier in New Mexico, fighting to impose Spanish authority in New Mexico and restore the region's Hispanic population. Over the next two years (1694–96), he and Vargas participated in the war against the Puebloan peoples, who had rebelled against Spanish sovereignty because of the maladministration of Juan Francisco Treviño. In December 1695, Valverde was promoted to captain of the local presidio.

He participated in many battles in 1696, including an assault on the mesa at Acoma. In early June, he began a military campaign against the Tewa people, who had promoted a Native American revolt along with the Tiwa, Keres, and Jemez people. That same year, Valverde suffered a serious illness, and Vargas gave him permission to travel for treatment in Mexico City.

In July 1697, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero replaced Vargas as governor and presented complaints against Vargas and Valverde. Vargas was imprisoned for several years, but Valverde was unaffected because he was in Spain at the time.

Valverde and Juan Bautista de Saldúa shared the captaincy of the presidio of El Paso, a position Valverde held for the remainder of his life. he was appointed alcalde of El Paso.

The viceroy Baltasar de Zúñiga entrusted Valverde with the foundation of a mission in the Jicarilla land, in the modern Cimarron, Kansas, to evangelize this band, as well as a presidio in the Apache settlement of El Cuartelejo (located also in present-day western Kansas). However, Valverde temporarily dismissed this proposal and decided organize a military expedition to search for the Comanches, who were attacking Spanish and Pueblo settlements in New Mexico, to capture them.

In September 1719 Valverde led a troop to Jicarilla and El Cuartelejo. The troop was make up of 100 Spanish soldiers and some 500 Amerindian Pueblos. When Valverde and his troops arrived to the Arkansas River in Eastern Colorado, one of the Apaches of El Cuartelejo told him that the French had established five settlements The expedition of 100 men, including many Pueblo Amerindians, traveled to the confluence of the Loup River and North Platte River in what is now Nebraska. In New Mexico, several hundred of Amerindians, particularly of the Pawnee and Otoe tribes, attacked with firearms, killing many of the explorers. He was also the uncle of Juan Domingo Bustamante, who would become governor of Spanish New Mexico. He was one of the wealthiest men in New Mexico, with a hacienda that included large wheat fields, a flour mill, a vineyard, and a farm with sheep, cattle, horses, mules, hogs, and goats. He also had nine black and mulatto slaves and more than 30 farm laborers.